Increasing Potencies of Enzymes Produced by Aspergillus Niger

Work at the Northern Regional Research Laboratory has established the usefulness of Aspergillus niger in the production of amylases (Le Mense et al. (3)). In adapting these methods to produc? tion of amylases on potato substratum, it became evident that cer? tain modiflcations were required. Calcium carbonate in the potato medium signincantly decreased enzyme potencies, as was found also by Tsuchiya et al. (6) of the Northern Regional Research Laboratory. A. niger grew vigorously on potato substratum, but filtrates of fermentations showing extremely abundant mycelium after short incubation periods had low enzyme potencies. Work was therefore initiated to obviate this condition on the theories